C-type print by Martin Parr. Two Children eat ice-creams on the seafront, 1983-1986. From the series 'Last Resort: Photographs of New Brighton', 1986.

Martin Parr (1952 - present) is one of Britain's most influential and well-known photographers. Prolific and successful, Parr is famous for his unorthodox and often humorous style and his interest in mass tourism, consumerism and globalisation. His work is often received with ambivalence, as it seems to display many criticisms of England and the English.

A member of Magnum Photos, Parr works with brash colour to portray a world apparently full of vulgarity and wastefulness. His first large scale project was 'The Last Resort', a series of photographs of the seaside resort of New Brighton on the Wirral.

Published as a book in 1986, and exhibited widely, 'The Last Resort' brought him notoriety for its shocking portrayal of modern society, expressed through garish colour.